


everything that goes right

by throughfire



Series: Buck and Eddie [3]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:34:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22773424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/throughfire/pseuds/throughfire
Summary: He can feel Eddie’s fingers curling in the hair at the nape of his neck. Can feel Eddie’s chest rising and falling heavily against his own much like an instruction, something for Buck to follow while the rest of him keeps crumbling.-Or: Buck has a horrible afternoon, a decent evening, and a wonderful morning.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz
Series: Buck and Eddie [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1630543
Comments: 56
Kudos: 739





	everything that goes right

The air is chilly. Buck has forgotten his hoodie somewhere. He thinks that he might have forgotten to put it on when he left the station, and his arms are bare and exposed to the evening now. The cold bites them hungrily.

He looks down at the inside of a wrist, pale and lined with veins that don’t speak of anything but his existence. It seems insignificant, somehow. Not enough. He can’t _do_ enough with these limbs, these hands or wrists, these legs or feet.

The feet are planted upon stone, now. He frowns down at them and struggles to get the equation right in his head because he’s not supposed to be here. He’s not supposed to be standing here, small upon stone and insignificantly alive beneath such a grand sky, such observant stars. He doesn’t understand how he got here, how his car ended up parked behind him, and he has no idea of how long he’s been standing here, contemplating the smallness of himself, when the front door of the house before him opens up.

It’s Eddie, allowing light out of the house to take a bite of the air and eat some of the darkness outside.

“Buck?” he’s asking softly, not even disturbing the wind. “You coming in?”

He’s asking it so casually, as though Buck isn’t here by mistake. As though he hasn’t shown up uninvited, as though he hasn’t stumbled along and fallen, here, in thought.

“This…” Buck tapers off. His voice is weak and confused, tousled by the same wind. “I wasn’t going here.”

”No?” Eddie hums, a smile in his voice. There is patience lining his posture where he’s standing in his own doorway, gently lit up from behind and framed by wood like a piece of art. He’s more beautiful than the moon; the sky suddenly as insignificant as Buck is – its existence rendered useless by the soft beam of Eddie’s warm glow. “Where were you going, then?”

“Home,” Buck answers, and it sounds so much like a question that the stars must be laughing at him, as though it’s his fault that they have guided him wrong.

Eddie shrugs. Says, “Close enough.”

Buck releases a shaky exhale. It affronts the wind; makes it scrape his skin harder when it passes by. His fingertips tremble, it feels like the blood in his veins travels too slowly throughout the length of him to reach so far, to make the trembling stop or make his hands fight against the breeze.

Eddie is in front of him within two strides, slow but determined and then suddenly just _there_ , ducking slightly to meet Buck’s gaze and search his eyes. It makes Buck feel transparent, as though the moon and its insignificant shine is washing him out, making him blend into the background. But Eddie doesn’t lose sight of him; doesn’t look away from what he sees. And he must see _something_ because there is a line between his brows now; worry nestled where it should never be.

“Buck,” Eddie’s murmuring, and then he’s reaching a hand out between them. It hovers uncertainly there, caught in the battle between his own glow and the moonlight as though afraid to travel onwards, unsure if it's welcome. “Can I touch you?”

And Buck isn’t in control of his feet, nor his heart, his feelings or the words that derive from all of that, all of him. His hands are shaking and his mind is worn out and stretched thin, and his heart has yearned for a whole damn year and he’s just trying to get _home_.

So he whispers, “ _Please_.”

Eddie's fingers circle his wrist a moment later; cover those insignificant veins with a sense of urgency that sinks right into Buck's bloodstream, and it's all it takes. A slight pinprick that breaks Buck apart completely. He falls entirely; into himself and into Eddie. Collapses, and trusts Eddie to be there, to catch every little piece of him because Eddie always does, always has done, has never asked for anything in return.

Eddie has wrapped him up completely in warm, safe arms; has shut the breeze out by pressing the two of them together and must be projecting that warm glow outwards because suddenly Buck feels like nothing can reach him. It’s as though the wind has gone, the moon faded, the stars hushed and asleep. All that’s left is room for Buck to breathe in – a warmth for him to sink into while his feet finally start to appreciate the stone beneath them, the place that they’ve found on their own.

He can feel Eddie’s fingers curling in the hair at the nape of his neck. Can feel Eddie’s chest rising and falling heavily against his own much like an instruction, something for Buck to follow while the rest of him keeps crumbling.

“Come on,” Eddie mutters eventually, words quietly pressed to Buck’s temple. He’s pushing Buck into movement with his own body, getting them inside the house in some miraculous way that even the moon must envy.

Buck can hear the click of the door as it closes behind them, his own breathing loud and labored as his lungs strain under the rush of emotion and pure exhaustion. He can’t seem to open his eyes, can’t seem to address reality and risk that it steals this moment from him, this suspended fraction of time where he is allowed to be completely consumed by Eddie like this, shielded from moonlight and wind and his own mind.

They’re still moving, going further into the house, and Buck curls his hand in the back of Eddie’s sweater, holding on tightly as he asks, “Chris…?”

“Sleepover,” Eddie assures him quietly. His voice, his posture, the way he’s keeping Buck close – all of him seems so sure of this, of them, of this house that allows them to tumble through it without grace.

The bedroom welcomes them when they enter it; softly lit and holding its breath as they settle in there. Eddie abandons him after a moment, taking half a step back so that all that still connects them is the tight fist that Buck refuses to uncurl from Eddie’s sweater. He feels cold all over again, lonely and small upon the hardwood floor, and he reluctantly opens his eyes to look at Eddie.

Eddie looks fondly back at him – there’s no other word for it. His gaze is soft and kind and he doesn’t seem perturbed by Buck’s behavior. He just keeps smiling gently at Buck and proceeds to be just as gentle when he pries Buck’s fingers from his own sweater.

A moment later he’s taking the sweater off and handing it to Buck, left shirtless and mouth-watering in the orange glow from the bedside lamp.

“You’re freezing, Buck,” he’s saying, pressing the sweater into Buck’s hand. “What the hell were you thinking, going out like that?”

“Weren’t,” Buck manages to say, studying the fabric in his hand with wonder curling under his skin, blooming in the same shades of blues and greens as his veins are. All of him feels more colorful in here, more defined and less transparent as though stained by Eddie’s warmth and glowing in the aftermath of him.

He can’t find it in himself to argue or look for another sweater – doesn’t think that there is a single cell in his body that could ever pretend not to want to wear Eddie’s sweater right now, so he just puts it on. It’s got Eddie’s warmth and scent lingering in each thread and is overwhelmingly comforting to slip on, slightly long at the arms and covering tired knuckles.

When he slides his head out of the neckline of the sweater, he’s met with Eddie’s patient gaze, his calming presence. There is a lot of enticing skin on display in the dimly-lit room, a lot of well-defined muscle and interesting dips and swells of bone and tendon that Buck would like to appreciate in a timely fashion, but he’s too alone, now. Too concerned with being close to that body to look at it for more than a second before he’s reaching out, asking wordlessly for permission.

Eddie responds by moving in closer again, only stopping once Buck’s hand is resting on his chest. He presses his own palm against Buck’s side and applies pressure, and a moment later the bed is another patch of stone that Buck doesn’t know how he ended up on. He’s suddenly so grateful for it all, though. For guiding stars and his own faulty attention span that took him here, because there’s nowhere else he’d rather be right now. No place where he’ll ever feel more significant than next to Eddie. 

*

He knows it’s early when he wakes up a few hours later; can tell by the curious beginnings of sunlight in the room that highlights Eddie’s features in the most breathtaking of ways. The long lashes, the full lips, the stubbled jaw. All of him is stunning.

Everything smells of Eddie, too. Everything’s right and soft around him where it was wrong and uncomfortable last night. He’s got Eddie’s hand curled at the center of his chest like a solid weight to keep him in place, protective and full of care even in sleep.

Buck rests beneath that hand for a long moment, savoring the feeling of it and how right he feels beneath it. He’s less of a mess here, with Eddie and in his own mind, and the sunlit sky isn’t making fun of his emotions.

He takes the hand eventually. Holds it in his own while he sits up in the bed and twists and turns until he can look down at Eddie comfortably. He curls one leg under himself and lets his knee brush against Eddie’s hip, places Eddie’s hand on his own thigh and just breathes in the scene for a while.

Eddie is still asleep, curled on his side around the empty space that Buck just vacated. His breathing is slow and heavy; comforting to listen to as the morning grows older around them.

Buck reaches out and lies his hand on Eddie’s hip, just above the waistband of the other man’s sweatpants. The skin there is warm despite a lack of clothing and comforter to protect it during the night. Eddie’s not as susceptible to the cold as Buck is – wasn’t as tousled by wind and emotional baggage as Buck was when their paths crossed last night. He was just a knight in golden skin, opening up his home and heart for Buck to warm up in, and Buck is in awe of him.

He watches his own fingers where they rest on Eddie; the slow exploration of soft, warm skin that they have started up without his permission. They’re curiously dragging over hard bone and along lines of muscle all along Eddie’s side and stomach, up to the ribs. Whispering their fascination, their adoration, and not once lifting or separating from the beauty.

Everything’s gilded. The room, Eddie, and even Buck’s fingertips. They don’t tremble now, not like they did last night. They feel purposeful here, when they’re touching Eddie like this. It feels like this is something that he can’t mess up, because Eddie will help him fix anything that he breaks – Buck himself is proof of that, sat on this bed with hope caught in his throat after a night spent with an Eddie who patched all the pieces of him back together with one, prolonged touch.

Eddie breathes out amusement eventually. Evidently ticklish, with joy brightening his entire face as he wakes. He opens his eyes and squints against light and bleariness for a moment, then he’s addressing Buck with a warm, kind gaze. There’s curiosity in those eyes, an ever-present calm in the veins and nerve-endings of that body even as it trembles with badly contained amusement under Buck’s hand.

He doesn’t stop Buck’s fingers, doesn’t question their place upon his own skin but allows them to continue their exploration without saying a word. He watches on along with the sunlight, and it feels supportive where it rests over the side of Buck’s face. He feels as highlighted as Eddie looks, and knows that he is casting shadows behind himself right now – no longer transparent but completely real and solid in this room, with this man, under this bright sky.

After a long moment, Eddie’s voice sinks into the silence. It’s thick with sleep and hangs low in the air when it gently prods with a question of, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Buck instinctively shakes his head and looks back down at his own hand again, tracing its path over Eddie’s features with his gaze. He takes a moment to think, to gather his thoughts and form the right words, then explains, “We lost a little girl yesterday. I was looking for her for _so_ long – under her bed, in the closet, everywhere. The fire had spread throughout the entire house and I just – I couldn’t _find_ her anywhere, and then it – and there was an explosion and I just couldn’t – I just felt so fucking _useless_.”

Eddie replies with a knowing silence; lets the words sink in and feels them under the worried beams of the sun. He understands this, knows that there’s nothing to say, nothing to do but try to breathe through the ache. His hand on Buck’s thigh tightens, there and warm and comforting, and it’s all Buck needs, really. A sign that Eddie still isn’t going anywhere.

“After Chris, you’re the strongest person I know,” Eddie murmurs later on, when the silence has stretched itself out long and lazy in a particularly nice sunbeam. “The fact that you felt that way last night – that you were standing completely lost on my driveway after it had happened – just confirms why.”

Buck breathes out slowly, raising his gaze to meet Eddie’s again. “I don’t know why it hit me like that, why I was such a mess.”

“Because you care,” Eddie tells him, because he _knows_ Buck – is sure of everything he sees. “I’d be worried if you _didn’t_ react that way, if you just kept it bottled up inside.”

“You helped,” Buck says, swallowing hard. “Seeing you helped. I just… working without you by my side has become such a strange concept because it happens so rarely and I couldn’t face the idea of not seeing you after that afternoon. I think that’s why I ended up here last night?”

Eddie brushes his thumb over Buck’s thigh, warm even through fabric.

“I’m glad you did,” he says, and a second later there’s a teasing glint appearing in his eye before he adds, “and that I found you outside before you froze to death, you fool.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Buck sighs, though he’s grinning at himself, shaking his head at his own antics.

He looks back down at his hand again, watches his fingers twitch against Eddie’s skin, perched upon the ribcage. Eddie still hasn’t stopped him, hasn’t moved away from him or shown any signs of discomfort. He’s warm and pliant under Buck’s hand, humming under the touch, and Buck never wants to take his hand back. Never wants to move it away; to lose this moment or change what is brewing quietly between them, within it.

The silence settles over them again, and Buck lifts his gaze once more, locking it with Eddie’s. There’s something in those eyes other than curiosity and sparks of amusement now; a warmth and intensity that makes Buck’s heart beat more pointedly in his chest.

There is a _yes_ embedded in the way Eddie is looking at him, a _go on_ , an unspoken _I like this_ , and Buck acts on it. He applies pressure to the touch of his own hand, pressing the entire palm to Eddie’s side and watching as Eddie sinks down on his back, opening up to Buck’s gaze and offering a larger expanse of skin for Buck’s fingers to roam.

Buck slides his hand to the center of Eddie’s stomach, and rests it heavily just below the breastbone. There are goosebumps in his wake, over side and stomach, and a steady rise and fall of the entire torso that is calming to feel against his own palm. It _can_ rest there and not break anything, _can_ leave good things behind even if his blood circulation is a bit shit at times.

Eddie is still watching him curiously. Patiently. _Lovingly_. And Buck knows that the ache that he feels in his chest that moment won’t ever go away if he doesn’t feed it with what it wants, what it’s wanted for so long. Knows that if he walks away from this, now, then he won’t know how to return to the same place again, and he won’t know if Eddie will be prepared to meet him there another time.

He moves under the weight of Eddie’s palm on his thigh and pushes himself forward, in over Eddie’s chest. His hand’s brushing gently over Eddie’s chest, up to his shoulder, while the other lands next to Eddie’s head on the mattress.

He can feel Eddie’s fingers shift and hook around the back of the thigh, so certain where they press into fabric and skin to hold Buck in place. All of Eddie is gorgeous beneath him, with those long, tantalizing eyelashes and the eyes that they frame that Buck always gets so fucking lost in. But Eddie’s nodding his head, now, answering some unspoken question that Buck must have conveyed, and there’s no time to get lost in anything but the feeling of Eddie beneath him, solid and real and his to devour.

He leans down, closes the last few inches between them and fits his mouth against Eddie’s. It feels so soft, so _right_ , that Buck’s breath falls messily out across Eddie’s bottom lip, and he can feel Eddie smile at him, against him, ever so amused by Buck’s actions.

Buck doesn’t need his breath anyway, doesn’t need anything but this, but Eddie’s hand at the back of his neck and Eddie’s lips working slowly, deliberately against his own. It’s languid, almost lazy, tainted with sleep and urged on by desire. Eddie’s kissing him back as though he’s been longing for this moment just as much as Buck has, and it’s the most rewarding thing to hear him moan softly into the kiss, to know that Eddie wants him just as badly as he wants Eddie.

Eddie’s tugging him down, making him sink right down on top of Eddie’s chest, and it allows Buck’s hand to sneak back to Eddie’s skin – to brush reverently against that stubbled jaw and drag a sense of reality against his own fingertips because otherwise it will all seem like a dream, after. Too good to ever have been true.

He finds that he does need his breath after all. Just a bit, just something to keep him drifting, here, in this moment. In sunshine, on Eddie, and swathed in this warmth. He reluctantly leans back a fraction and has to blink again and again; separate infatuated eyelashes in order to get Eddie back in his sight.

He’s already smiling back at Buck, soft as ever and so damn _pretty_.

“Hi,” Buck breathes out, more air than sound.

Eddie’s smile widens; he outshines the sun. His hand is a comforting weight at the back of Buck’s neck, anchoring them in the moment, and his voice is still raw when he speaks.

“Hi,” he says, and it’s all Buck needs. Affection spelled out in voice and across those gorgeous features in a way that can’t possibly be misread. This thing between them, it isn’t going anywhere, isn’t going to be left behind. This is a start. It’s them, _together_. And Eddie, as though reading those thoughts, adds, “You’re beautiful.”

It surely must stain Buck’s cheeks pink – they feel warm under the compliment and beneath Eddie’s unwavering attention. He scrambles for something to say, for coherent words that are good enough to express just how handsome _Eddie_ is looking right now, when a phone chimes in.

Its tone is aggressive, cutting through sunshine and silence in search for attention, and despite the home that Buck has made out of Eddie’s hand at the back of his neck he tips his head forward and away from it; plants his forehead upon Eddie’s clavicle and fails to stop a noise of protest from slipping out of him. It’s low and rumbling and makes Eddie laugh beneath him, and Buck nips at his collarbone in retaliation. Takes a moment, there, to try to find his breath in the softness of Eddie’s skin while Eddie’s arm lifts from his back and reaches for the phone on the nightstand.

He stops the noise, says, “Just the alarm.”

Buck grumbles. “Got anywhere better to be?”

“Now that you’re here I don’t,” Eddie murmurs, sticking his hand under Buck’s sweater and resting his fingers along Buck’s spine. “I’d planned to fit a workout in before I pick Christopher up.”

“Yeah, you really need it,” Buck scoffs, sliding a hand down along the lean lines of Eddie’s torso and savoring the laughter that slips out of Eddie in response. “Not today, though.”

He slips the hand further down Eddie’s side and fits it in between Eddie’s back and the mattress, pressing himself impossibly closer to Eddie’s front to emphasize his point; to show that he sure as hell isn’t moving away from Eddie anytime soon.

Eddie hums out in consideration, his fingers warm and curious beneath the sweater – as fascinated with Buck’s skin as Buck’s fingers were with his before, it seems.

“No,” Eddie concludes, pressing a kiss to Buck’s temple. “Not today.”


End file.
